Plague Years

Like an icepick to the face, PLAGUE YEARS arrives with an electric surge of sudden pain. An unrelenting end of the world assault of the cataclysmic convergence of thrash and hardcore,
with bits of blackened death and midtempo madness to spare, the Detroit master blasters are here to crash the crossover party. Summoning the primitive spirit of the singular moment when
the heaviest of metal first smashed into a circle pit, PLAGUE YEARS reignite the flame with sharp fury.

The devilish and down-tuned death worship within PLAGUE YEARS serves as a demonic calling card for the Detroit foursome, a brutal counterbalance to their otherwise likeminded thrash revivalists. On Circle of Darkness, the band’s full-length debut, PLAGUE YEARS reunite with engineer Arthur Rizk, whose work with Power Trip, Tomb Mold, Candy, and Cavalera Conspiracy has propelled him to the front of the horde amidst the resurgence of crossover thrash.

Many in the metal press have already christened them heir apparent to crossover standard bearers Iron Age and D.R.I., with the speed-metal bite of Kreator and the overall bludgeoning of
Slowly We Rot era Obituary. As demonstrated in dimly-lit clubs and theaters alongside bands like Creeping Death and Skeletal Remains, PLAGUE YEARS mine the subterranean depths once
unearthed on classic Sepultura albums like Beneath the Remains and Arise, with the vicious bite of Germanic slabs like In the Sign of Evil by Sodom and the Hall of Fame ‘80s output of Slayer.

Fellow Great Lakes State metal maven Trevor Strnad, of The Black Dahlia Murder, named the band’s Unholy Infestation EP one of his 100 favorites of 2018, a sentiment echoed by another
scribe at Metal Injection the same year. PLAGUE YEARS pay homage to Detroit forebearers Negative Approach and modern contemporaries Hellmouth in equal measure, while infusing
the proceedings with a brutal spin of their own design. In terms of lyrical aggression, songs like “Play the Victim” and “Paradox of Death” – both drawn from their furious eOne debut, Circle of
Darkness – blend traditional death metal blood-and-gore fantasy with the unrestrained bravado of Detroit’s grittier contributions to rap, like LOM Rambo and Motown upstart Icewear Vezzo.

There’s dungeon torture in “Witness Hell,” undead armies in “Incantation.” Circle of Darkness is a brutal, putrid ode to headbanging, boot stomping, heavy metal culture. As Revolver declared in one of the magazine’s many passionate endorsements, PLAGUE YEARS “rips hard,” a compulsive death charge right into the fiery mouth of Hades. “Just try not to bang your head. We dare you.”